Frank LaRose

On a party line vote, an Ohio House committee has passed a bill that will make some changes to election law. Backers say it gives more flexibility to election officials should COVID-19 cause changes this November but its opponents have concerns.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has formed a task force with local and statewide elections officials to prepare for the November election. He’s pushing legislation that would make changes for November but Democrats have their own bill to do that.

Just under a quarter of Ohio’s registered voters actually cast ballots in the primary election which ended earlier this week. Low turnout was expected after the original March 17th in person Election Day was canceled because of coronavirus concerns, and absentee voting by mail was extended until this past Tuesday. And there are now calls for change to make it easier to vote this fall.

If you're still waiting on an absentee primary ballot to arrive in the mail, election officials say you're not alone. Secretary of State Frank LaRose says he's been fielding reports from around Ohio that the postal system is taking longer than usual to deliver the mail, including absentee ballots.

Thousands of Ohio voters are finding out if they want to vote on election day, they’ll have to go to a new place to cast their ballots for the St. Patrick’s Day primary next week. The state is moving 128 polling places out of nursing homes and senior residential facilities because of concerns about spreading coronavirus to residents.

(NOTE: This story has been updated with a list of the new polling places.)

Voting rights advocates, computer security experts and some county elections officials gathered at the Ohio Statehouse for in a cybersecurity initiative. And some say they feel like they have the information they need to protect Ohio’s upcoming primary.

The state’s chief elections officer is criticizing President Trump and other key figures for sharing rumors and false information related to voting, recently about the Iowa caucuses but going all the way back to the 2016 election. This comes as Ohioans prepare to start early voting in two weeks for the presidential primary in March.

90 percent of all Ohio counties are now considered compliant with an election security order issued by the Secretary of State last summer. That leaves a handful that aren’t, with two weeks until voters start casting early ballots for the March presidential primary.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose is ordering county elections officials to be on guard for the possibility of a cyber attack from Iran after entities have seen an increase in suspicious cyber activity around the country.

The state attorney general and several county prosecutors will be reviewing cases of potential voter fraud where people are accused of casting a vote in a different state then casting another in Ohio during the 2018 election.

Ohio’s Secretary of State says a recent attempt by a computer in Panama to insert code into his office’s website was unsuccessful. But state leaders say this incident underscores why a comprehensive election security plan must be put in place soon.

Veterans around the state gathered today at events to honor their service. The National Veterans Memorial and Museum in Columbus, which offered free admissions to veterans and their families in honor of the occasion, paid its respects to those who have served their country.

Ohio’s Secretary of State says he’ll release the list of registrations removed from voting rolls this month to various voter groups so they can re-register people on that list by the October 7 registration deadline. And after he's dealt with that, he says he might check past voter removal lists for errors.

A federal court has ruled Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose can remove more than 200,000 voters from the rolls Friday as planned. The Ohio Democratic Party had ask the court to block it, saying thousands of voters could be improperly removed.

Before the ink is barely dry on a new settlement between the ACLU of Ohio and the Secretary of State's office, Ohio's Democratic Party is filing its own lawsuit over the process of removing voters from the rolls.

Last week, voting rights activists said about 4,000 voters were wrongly on a list of 235,000 registrations provided by counties that were set to be removed or “purged” from the rolls next month. But Ohio’s top election official says that’s not true, and in fact more people are now active voters. Here's why those names aren’t being removed from the list.

Today is the first day of early voting for the May primary – which means yesterday was the last day to register to vote. And though turnout in off-year primaries is especially low, there may be those who will try to vote but find they’ve been removed from the rolls.

Ohio’s top elections official says it’s time for a change to the stickers that are handed out at early vote centers and at the polls on election day. And he wants people who in most cases can’t yet vote to play a role in designing them.

Ohio’s Secretary of State Frank LaRose is warning voters to be vigilant when they come across information regarding politics and government on social media, he says misinformation remains a top priority in the fight against elections meddling.